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T3 Bankstown line
The Bankstown Line is part of the metropolitan rail network of Sydney known as Sydney Trains. It services various Inner West and Western Sydney suburbs including centres at Bankstown and Liverpool. It is also referred to on maps and platforms by the code History The line opened between Sydenham on the Illawarra railway line and Belmore in 1895. This was the first solely suburban line to open in Sydney- all other rail lines were mainlines carrying traffic into and out of Sydney. In 1909, the line was extended to Bankstown, with intermediate stations at Lakemba and Punchbowl. Wiley Park station opened later in 1938. In 1928, the line was extended westwards from Bankstown to join the main suburban railway at Lidcombe. In 1916, the Metropolitan Goods Line was constructed paralleling the Bankstown Line between Marrickville and Campsie. In 1926 the Bankstown became the second line in Sydney to be electrified and a maintenance depot was constructed at Punchbowl. Electrification was extended from Bankstown to Regents Park in 1939. Electric passenger services originally operated along the Bankstown Line to St James station, until the 1956 opening of Circular Quay station and the completion of the City Circle. The Punchbowl maintenance depot closed in 1994. The line formerly was depicted in a brown colour in the early 1990s before being changed to a purple colour around 2000, before it became the current orange colour. January 2006 saw the completion of a four-year project to upgrade the line. The work included the resleepering of the entire line, replacing the former wooden sleepers with the more durable concrete ones, replacement and upgrade of the signalling, and also replacement of the ageing catenary, mostly with the more modern double contact wire variety. Other minor work such as graffiti removal and lineside litter clean-up was also carried out as part of the upgrade. The lengthy upgrade process was noted for its "January Closedowns", in which the entire line was closed in January for the bulk of the upgrade work to take place. Passengers were required to use specially provided substitute buses which stopped only at the railway stations, and honoured Sydney Trains tickets. In addition to the track and catenary upgrade, many of the stations on the Bankstown Line have had their facilities upgraded in the early 2000s, including new station buildings, the installation of platform lifts for wheelchair access, and the installation of security cameras. The upgrade of all stations is ongoing, and many are still in their original condition, and do not provide wheelchair accessibility, making it prudent for those requiring this capability to check before travelling. In the October 2013 timetable changes, the Lidcombe and Homebush turnbacks were brought into use, stopping trains from returning to the city from Lidcombe via the Inner West Line. Sydney Metro Conversion From 2019 to 2023, the stations between Sydenham and Bankstown will be progressively converted and modified in order to serve the driverless Alstom Metropolis sets on the privately-operated Sydney Metro driverless rapid-transit rail network. The existing stations will have platforms modified in order to fit glass platform screen doors, with new Metro-specific tracks and signals fitted. Five stations on the line (Dulwich Hill, Hurlstone Park, Canterbury, Wiley Park and Punchbowl) will also receive wheelchair accessibility for the first time as part of fitting the requirement for all Sydney Metro stations to have wheelchair access. After the new service opens in 2024, Sydenham will then link to new fully underground Metro stations at Waterloo, Central, Pitt Street, Martin Place, Barangaroo, Victoria Cross and Crows Nest before continuing to Chatswood and the Metro North West Line to Tallawong. The remainder of the line west of Bankstown (including Yagoona, Birrong, Regents Park, Berala, Sefton, Chester Hill, Leightonfield, Villawood and Carramar stations) will be split into two services - Lidcombe to Bankstown and City to Liverpool (via Regents Park), with Regents Park to serve as an interchange between the two branches. St Peters and Erskineville stations will have services transferred to the T4 Eastern Suburbs and Illawarra Line on a permanent basis. Services Services begin in the City Circle. Trains on the Bankstown line are often split between the inner (anticlockwise) and outer (clockwise) City Circle tracks. After Central, all trains merge back into the 'Illawara Local' tracks. Trains operate on the 'Illawarra local' (western pair) tracks between Redfern and Sydenham, serving St Peters and Erskineville stations. After Sydenham, trains make a sharp turn to the west, joining the Bankstown railway line. At Birrong, about half of the Bankstown line trains go down the branch line to terminate at Lidcombe. All other trains continue on to Liverpool. In 2009-2010, the Bankstown line ranked 3rd in reliability out of the 16 lines on the Sydney Trains service. 97.2% of Bankstown services ran on-time ranking 3rd in terms of reliability. Some services on the Lidcombe branch have incorrect destinations displayed for various reasons. At Lidcombe, platform screens will display City services as terminating at Sydenham, to stop passengers for the City, who can take a much faster T1/2 service, from boarding. Newer trains running outbound Lidcombe branch services display 'Birrong' as the destination. This is due to the rule that each run number must have a specified direction, either 'up' (towards City) or 'down' (away from City). As the train turns back toward the City after Birrong, the train receives a new run number after Birrong. Therefore, the train displays 'Birrong' as its destination as that is the last stop on its current run. The exterior displays can be manually overriden by the guard to display 'Lidcombe', but the interior displays cannot. Old timetable (before November 2017) At most times, except for morning peak outbound services, one train starts/ends at Liverpool, then the next train starts/ends at Lidcombe. During the morning peak however, there is an extra outbound Regents Park service added in between. Before 2015, some services also extended to Campbelltown/Glenfield and all Lidcombe services also continued past Lidcombe, returning to the City via the Inner West Line. During peak hour, patterns 1 and 3 run. During the off-peak, patterns 1 and 2 run. New Timetable (after November 2017) In 2017, the ABC won a legal battle with Transport for NSW and as a result published TfNSW's 2014 draft timetable. The revised timetable showed that the Bankstown line would be upgraded to 10 trains per hour, 4 from Lidcombe and 2 each from Liverpool, Bankstown and Leppington. The actual timetable change came into effect in November 2017. Services were significantly boosted on the Bankstown Line on weekdays, but not as much as shown in the draft timetable. More stopping patterns were added for peak hour services and express services were added during the off-peak. Peak Hour Stopping Patterns (All patterns 2tph) Off Peak Stopping Patterns Weekend Stopping Patterns Unchanged from old timetable, patterns 1 and 2 in table below. Stations References Gallery Stations Town_Hall_Railway_Station_Platform_2.jpg|Town Hall Wynyard_railway_station_stairs_at_top_of_p_3_%26_4.jpg|Wynyard Circular_quay_railway_station_exterior_from_water.jpg|Circular Quay St_James_Station_Platform_1.jpg|St James MuseumStation.jpg|Museum CentralStation.jpg|Central Redfern_railway_station.jpg|Redfern ErskinevilleStation.jpg|Erskineville StPetersStation.jpg|St Peters SydenhamStation.jpg|Sydenham MarrickvilleStation.jpg|Marrickville DulwichHillStation.JPG|Dulwich Hill HurlstoneParkStation.jpg|Hurlstone Park CanterburyStation.jpg|Canterbury CampsieStation.jpg|Campsie BelmoreStation.jpg|Belmore LakembaStation.JPG|Lakemba WileyParkStation.jpg|Wiley Park PunchbowlStation.jpg|Punchbowl BankstownStation.jpg|Bankstown YagoonaStation.JPG|Yagoona BirrongStation.JPG|Birrong RegentsParkStation.jpg|Regents Park BeralaStation.jpg|Berala Lidcombe_Railway_Station.jpg|Lidcombe SeftonStation.JPG|Sefton ChesterHillStation.JPG|Chester Hill LeightonfieldStation.JPG|Leightonfield VillawoodStation.JPG|Villawood CarramarStation.JPG|Carramar CabramattaStation.jpg|Cabramatta WarwickFarmStation.jpg|Warwick Farm LiverpoolStation.JPG|Liverpool Fleet ASet.jpg|Waratah A Set BSet.jpg|Series 2 Waratah B Set SydneyTrainsMset.jpeg|Millennium M Set (weekdays only) SydneyTrainsKsetNew.jpeg|K Set (weekdays only) CityRail-Cset-C13-at-BardwellPark.jpg|C Set (weekdays only) Category:Sydney Trains Category:Railway Lines Category:Sydney Trains Lines Category:City of Sydney Category:Inner West Council Category:City of Canterbury Bankstown Category:City of Fairfield Category:Cumberland Council Category:City of Liverpool